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“Only the Brave” is the latest in a long line of reality-based disaster films in which horrible tragedies are brought back to life through special effects and served up for the delectation of multiplex audiences—a sub-genre that has become so popular in recent years that Mark Wahlberg has practically built a cottage industry out of producing them. This is a type of filmmaking that I have always felt a certain level of ambivalence towards, despite the fact that it has good intentions, because it has a tendency to feel hollow and exploitative in the natural world. In “Only the Brave,” a documentary that follows an Arizona firefighting crew known as the Granite Mountain Hotshots from their earliest days of training to their tragic encounter with the Yarnell Hill fire, the filmmakers use a combination of sincerity and technical skill to create something that is effective on a fundamental level, even if it never quite achieves the devastating emotional experience that it clearly wants to be.
“Hotshots,” as the film explains up front, are a select group of forest firefighters who have received specialized training and certification to enter active fire zones and establish a controlled fire line that the advancing inferno cannot cross. During the first act of the film, a team from the small Arizona town of Prescott, led by chief Eric Marsh (Josh Brolin), is attempting to become certified, a feat that would make them the country’s first municipal hotshot squad. While they are part of the second wave, they are merely spectators as the hotshots get to do all of the real work, even if they are more familiar with the terrain and how the fire can turn in a split second than the top dogs. Eventually, local wildland division chief Duane Steinbrink (Jeff Bridges) manages to put them in a position where they can finally receive an official assessment. As the group begins to prepare for this, they gain a new member in the form of Brendan McDonough (Miles Teller), a local jerk who, upon learning that his ex-girlfriend is pregnant, resolves to finally get off drugs and become responsible. It appears to Marsh (Taylor Kitsch) that taking on Brendan at this time would be a huge mistake, as fellow firefighter Christopher McKenzie (Taylor Kitsch) is constantly reminding him. However, Marsh sees something in McDonough that motivates him to take the risk.
Marsh, in an ironic twist, is the one who comes dangerously close to blowing it for the group during their evaluation when he chooses to use a risky maneuver to combat a fire. After all is said and done, the Granite Mountain Hotshots, as they are now known, quickly establish themselves in a series of fires, even becoming local heroes when they assist in saving a prized tree from a neighboring fire. Their health begins to suffer as a result of the risks associated with their job, as well as the extended periods of time they spend away from their families. McDonough, who has completely pulled himself together in order to establish a relationship with his baby daughter, is concerned that the absences will turn him into the absent father that he previously experienced and vowed that he would never be again. As for Marsh, the new job demands are causing him and his wife, Amanda (Jennifer Connelly), additional stress. Amanda, who knew what she was getting into when she married Marsh, is no longer pleased with him devoting so much of his life to his job and so little time to her.
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However, contrary to popular belief, the Yarnell Hill fire and its aftermath do not take center stage in “Only the Brave.” Instead, the film spends its time showing how the crew grows and develops both professionally and personally, with a particular emphasis on the lives of Marsh and McDonough, respectively. In and of itself, this is not a bad strategy, but it does result in some awkwardness in the early going due to a screenplay by Ken Nolan and Eric Warren Singer that has to deal with a large amount of exposition, including the specifics of what a hotshot crew actually does and the internal politics of the group. For a film like “Black Hawk Down,” on which Nolan worked as a screenwriter, to succeed, it must be able to establish all of its various elements in a straightforward and effective manner. The script does a good job of informing us about what the hotshots do, as well as the danger and significance of their actions, but the other aspects of the story don’t quite come together. The various conflicts that arise as a result of the various struggles to become certified are never clearly established, and when they finally achieve that goal, it has little impact on the rest of the series. In addition, while the screenplay takes its time to fully establish the lives of Marsh and McDonough, the other members of the crew are largely ignored, with many of them only getting to deliver an incidental line or two and fill in the numerous shots of the crew sitting on hills and mountain ledges in casually heroic poses, as is the case in this film.
Only The Brave Quiz
But once the crew has received their certifications, the screenplay focuses on showcasing their abilities at work through a series of undeniably effective sequences in which they rush into massive conflagrations that director Joseph Kosinski stages in ways that are visually spectacular and increasingly tense without going too far overboard in the special effects department. The personal issues of Marsh and McDonough are dealt with in a straightforward and relatively non-maudlin manner as they emerge from the ashes. Additionally, there are some excellent performances from the large ensemble cast, with Brolin and Connelly standing out for the way that they take their potentially cliched characters—the gruff guy in charge and the wife left behind to wonder if she will ever see her husband again—and inject them with real life and personality by investing them with real life and personality. Jeff Bridges is the standout performer in “Legends of the Fall,” as he finally abandons the blend of Yosemite Sam and Anthony Hopkins that has been his default setting for quite some time and gives his most effective performance in recent memory—there is one brief moment when his character reacts to some very bad news that he has just received over the phone that may well be one of the most powerful things that he has ever done.
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Only the Brave, despite its early unevenness, tells its story in a sincere and relatively non-exploitationary manner that isn’t overly dominated by visual effects, and the cast does some excellent work as well. However, whether anyone will actually pay money to see it, especially in the wake of the devastating wildfires currently ravaging Northern California, remains to be seen. Nevertheless, anyone who does will likely come away from it feeling moved, if not exactly entertained,
For more personality quizzes check this: Baahubali 2 The Conclusion Quiz.
